{"id":659,"date":"2016-01-12T13:27:26","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T11:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/?p=659"},"modified":"2026-03-12T15:12:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T13:12:03","slug":"split-happens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/split-happens\/","title":{"rendered":"Split Happens. Goodbye"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Game<\/a>
Game over. I blew the whistle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Final whistle.\u00a0Game over. Goodbye Wits. I’m a consultant now. Here’s\u00a0my\u00a0‘split lit<\/a>‘ tale.<\/p>\n

I arrived in Johannesburg in 2010, just as the\u00a0Soccer World Cup\u00a0<\/a> was about to start. Jozi seemed\u00a0golden<\/a> and Wits, I thought, was\u00a0ready for the change\u00a0game. The Elearning, Support & Innovation\u00a0Unit<\/a> (eLSI) under the leadership of Prof Derek Keats<\/a>, DVC of Knowledge and Information Management (KIM<\/a>), had been formed. Chismaba<\/a> was ready. A new “tech savvy” elearning strategy heralded a new set of tactics. The boss offered me a deal that I could not refuse.<\/p>\n

Fast forward five years, and playing field had changed. Johannesburg was parched, in the midst of a heatwave, water supplies<\/a> were diminishing. The boss had resigned, change was no longer a players game. #Feesmustfall<\/a> students had taken the vice chancellor hostage<\/a> and were marching their anger to the Union Buildings. Most of\u00a0eLSI<\/a>\u00a0management (apart from me) dispatched, and\u00a0merged\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0under the Centre for Learning Teaching and Development (CLTD) “directorate”, who had unceremoniously dropped “Support & Innovation” from the eLearning unit’s name.<\/p>\n

Innovation, by its nature, involves both failure and success. As a team, eLSI had both. We launched <\/a> Sakai, we saw growth in uptake and budding change. But were unable to sustain the momentum, mainly\u00a0because\u00a0of an ill advised<\/a> re-deployment<\/a> of the software development team. I blew the whistle but it didn’t stop the game. My departure from the field was as a result of a brutal tackle. I could have packed up my boots. Quit earlier. I’m a consultant now with many tales to share.<\/p>\n

Update 22 August 2024 | The Boss<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Final whistle.\u00a0Game over. Goodbye Wits. I’m a consultant now. Here’s\u00a0my\u00a0‘split lit‘ tale. I arrived in Johannesburg in 2010, just as the\u00a0Soccer World Cup\u00a0 was about to start. Jozi seemed\u00a0golden and Wits, I thought, was\u00a0ready for the change\u00a0game. The Elearning, Support & Innovation\u00a0Unit (eLSI) under the leadership of Prof Derek Keats, DVC of Knowledge and Information … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Split Happens. Goodbye”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[167,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decide","category-discover","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5399,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions\/5399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}